Star Comment: Penny-pinching over vaccines will prove to be false economy in the long run
The mass immunisation of people at risk of flu has been one of the great success stories of the NHS over the past decade.
By providing relatively low-cost prevention during the quieter months of the autumn, the NHS has managed to mitigate the annual winter crisis, as well as keeping the most vulnerable people safe during the most dangerous months of the year.
It is therefore cause for some concern that some surgeries are saying they will not be signing up for the next vaccination programme this year.
The doctors' trade union, the British Medical Association, says that payments for dispensing the jabs have not risen since 2019, while the cost of administering the injections has grown substantially. Clinics which are contractually obliged to provide the inoculations will look at cutting staff levels, instead.
Now cynics might say that the time to worry is when the BMA is not complaining about something, but behind what Nye Bevan described as its 'raucous voiced' and 'politically poisoned' leadership, there does seem to be a ring of truth to these concerns.
The cost of most things have risen substantially over the past seven years, and it would be a surprise if the same did not apply to flu vaccines.
Freezing payments to GPs may save a bit of money in the short term, but if the result is a spike in the number of patients being admitted to hospital during the coldest months of the year, it will not just be a disaster for the health of the nation - it will be a massive financial mistake too.
Time for Health Secretary Wes Streeting to review this.